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| Expert Panel with UNSG |
Sunil Jayasiri
Claiming that the Expert Panel report on Sri Lanka known as the Darusman report has not been formally submitted to the Human Rights Council yet, the UN said it expected to see that concerned Member States would “take it up and push for something further.”
UN Chief’s Acting Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq however told the media that the report could be sent to the HRC in the near future.
The next session of the HRC is to be held from September 18 to 30. However, the HRC is yet to release the agenda for the next session.
It is also learnt that the United States is pushing to have ‘interactive talks’ on the Sri Lankan issue at the next HRC session.A highly placed government official meanwhile told the Daily Mirror that Sri Lanka did not expect that member states would take up the issue at the next session as the issue was irrelevant. However, he said that steps were being taken to prevent the issue from being discussed at the session with the help of powerful friendly nations including China and Russia.
“It (the report) has not been formally submitted to the Human Rights Council by the Secretary-General at this stage, although that could still happen in the future. Right now, what we expect and hope to see is that concerned Member States who are now appraised of the contents of that report will take it up and push for something further. As you know, the report has a number of recommendations, including for further investigation and for further efforts towards accountability. And we believe that they need to be taken up very seriously,” UN Chief’s Deputy spokesperson said.
He also said the Secretary-General, acting on his own authority, did create a Panel of Experts under the leadership of Marzuki Darusman, that came out with a report which to this day was one that we believe was worthy of study and further action by Member States.
“We do believe that there are many issues on which the Member Governments of the United Nations themselves need to take action. But on cases where they have not done so, as you know, the Secretary-General has taken it upon himself, as in Sri Lanka, and indeed as in his own good office efforts in Myanmar,” he said.
DM